For how long the color code is used and what is in particular the importance of this.

For Jan 1 to Dec 31 The importance of this so you can tell the age of the queen If color is missing did the bees re-queen them self's

BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)

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"Tell me and I'll forget,show me and I may remember,involve me and I'll understand" Chinese Proverb

"The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways." John F. KennedyFranklin County Beekeepers Association MA. http://www.franklinmabeekeepers.org/

"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

I spoke to a beek the other week who suggested using those little tins of hobby paint that people use to paint model planes - he said cut the pointy end off a 3" nail and dip this in the paint slightly and then dab it on the queen... has anyone used this technique over the commercially available marking pens? Also, who has used the numbered dots? I'd be interested in those for the purposes of record keeping - are they easy to use?

When I went to requeen earlier this year i found an Unmarked queen instead of the Marked one. Not only does this tell me the colony requeened itself, and about when, but that they went through TWO requeenings this year (including mine). Which explains to me why that colony is slightly behind the others in production. Otherwise i might be scratching my head trying to figure it out.